Freak Show
by Cybele3
Summary: Girl, Interrupted fic: Lisa and Susanna, escaped from Claymoore and on their way to Florida, find themselves at a carnival. ff slash implied but not explicit.


            We'd been on the road for three days, and I was glancing back over my shoulder at every opportunity; I knew Lisa didn't usually manage more than three or four days before she got caught.  My breath seized up in my chest with every cop car that passed by, but none of them seemed to be after us – even the one that pulled over the van we were hitching in was only interested in searching for drugs.  Seeing as there were quite a few there, Lisa grabbed a bag and then snuck us out the back door while the cops were coming around the front.  I couldn't believe we didn't get caught, but Lisa was obviously practiced at this.  We ran like hell into the woods until we couldn't run anymore, at which point she grabbed me by the shoulders and slapped a kiss on me that threatened to steal the last remnants of stability from my knees.  And we laughed.  We laughed a lot around then.

            If her eyes occasionally got a predatory gleam in them… if she occasionally snatched some guy's wallet and made a run for it, or disappeared for an hour or so and came back looking decidedly chemically enhanced… I didn't push it.  I was with Lisa.  I couldn't have expected anything else.

            We hitched another ride, but I wasn't too wild about the guys we were with – one of them was eyeing me in a rather unsavory manner – and we ditched them after a day and a half.  That was when Lisa noticed the road signs.  She turned to me, eyes blazing.  "There's a carnival 10 miles up," she said.  I couldn't understand the sudden energy in her.

            "So?"

            "So carnivals are fucking awesome.  I always wanted to be a carny.  Live on the road, never have to answer to anybody, spend your time smoking dope and laughing at the marks who think they actually have a chance of hitting the bell with the hammer.  Let's go."

            "Huh?"

            "Come on, Suzy-Q.  We're going to the carnival."

            So we went.

            It wasn't that great of a carnival, as carnivals went: the stuffed animals all had a pilly, dusty look, as though no one had won any in a very long time indeed, and the Dodgem cars were emitting disturbing clunking noises that made me give them a wide berth.  But Lisa loved it all.  I could see what she meant about wanting to be a carny: she was in her element.  She flirted with the ones behind the games, narrowed her eyes intently as she threw darts at balloons and hooked plastic fish with a toy fishing line; she'd won me a few chintzy prizes by the end of the day, even.  Going on the rides, she swung her hips sexily all the way up the ramp, making sure the guy manning the gate got a damn good look, and then she'd scream exuberantly all the way through – even on stupid kids' rides like the centipede train or the spinning strawberries.  She bargained with the guy selling cotton candy 'til he gave it to her half price in exchange for a peck on the cheek, and she dunked the clown in the water not one, not two, not even three, but four times in a row without ever batting an eye.  "Played softball in high school, pitcher," she said, flexing her arm afterwards in response to the round of applause that rippled through the watching crowd.  "Wasn't bad."

            And me?  Well, me, I just followed her.  Watched her.  And had a better time at the carnival than I'd ever had in my life.  It was so different from trailing around after my parents from one lame one-ticket ride to the next, both of them hell-bent on making me feel special and have some fun even though I was an only child without a lot of friends, all of me just wanting to get the hell away from the scary clowns and the creaky rides.  I used to use almost all my tickets on the Swinger, despite my parents' encouraging comments that there were lots of other rides to try; somehow, I only felt relaxed and free when I was swinging high above the ground in defiance of gravity, nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to worry about except the wind sweeping past my face and mussing my hair.  But then the ride would end and I'd have to get off, and my parents would be all over me with their ridiculous comments – "you did great, honey!" – like I'd just given a solo piano recital of Beethoven sonatas or flown an airplane across the Atlantic, instead of sitting strapped into a chair for five minutes and letting the swings and wind take me wherever they wanted.

            I think that was why I liked going with Lisa so much.  The whole point to this was that there was no point, nothing to worry about, nothing to be proud of.  We were just two girls fucking around and having fun.  That free feeling I had used to be able to find only on the Swinger was with me all the time now.

            After we did the SuperSlide – Lisa pulling her mat out from under her ass halfway down and waving it ecstatically in the air as she sailed down on her age-old cutoff jean shorts – we smoked a joint behind the funhouse.  Two joints, actually, because Lisa'd cut hers with "a little something special," something I suspected was PCP.  She'd offered me some, but I'd refused, even after she told me it was the only way to see the haunted house.  Let her have her own hobgoblins popping out from behind the corners, ten times as freaky as the cartoon ghosts and mechanical axes shooting from the walls.  I wasn't all that anxious to see what my subconscious would cook up with a little chemical aid.  I was having a hard enough time keeping the demons back as it was.

            Even without the PCP, she was right about drugs and the haunted house.  The whole thing, which would have seemed garish and childish under other circumstances, was an absolute hoot once we were stoned.  A zombie jumped out from a corner and stood glowering inches from our cart; I waved merrily at it and dissolved into giggles, while Lisa mimed giving it a quick blowjob, which only made me laugh harder.  A decomposing woman glided slowly towards us along the side of the track, and Lisa actually got out of the cart to "dance" with her, while I called frantically for her to get back in.  At the last second, before it pulled out of sight completely, she took a running jump and landed in my lap.  A machete dropped from the ceiling to dangle inches from our heads, and Lisa casually unhooked it from its crappy little chain and carried it out of the house with her, swinging it around her head and letting out wild battle cries the whole time.  I was laughing so hard my sides hurt.  When we got out of there, we booked it for the opposite side of the lot, in case the owner'd seen us taking the machete.  Then we laughed hysterically for what seemed like hours.

            When the drugs were finally starting to wear off a little – just in time, too; we'd been getting suspicious looks from some of the carnies, and I suspected we were pretty close to getting our asses thrown off the lot – we got around to checking out exactly where we'd wound up.  As soon as we saw the sign, Lisa's eyes got so bright and dazzled I recoiled a little, certain she was starting some fabulous hallucination.  But what she wound up saying was reasonable enough, even if I couldn't figure out why she was so excited about it:

            "Freak show."

            "Hey, hey, no need for insults," I joked, lamely.  I didn't know why I was so averse to the idea of seeing the freak show.  But if I thought I'd be able to divert her, I was kidding myself.

            "No," she said impatiently.  "We're going in."

            "But why?" I said, struggling to marshal my thoughts.  "Lisa, I don't like those things.  They're sensational and – and –" I was looking for the word "exploitative", but my pot-addled brain couldn't quite get a hold of it – "not good for the people in them."

            "Shit, Suzy-Q, no one's making them be in it.  They volunteer.  Get paid, too.  Probably the only place they fit in.  And we're going."

            When she talked in that tone, no one could say no to her, even when she wasn't high on a drug that had the potential to turn her violent.  So I followed her into the tent.

            They had all the standards: the bearded lady came first, sort of as a warmup act, I guess – Lisa brushed her off impatiently.  The "Wolfman" was next, sort of in the same vein, a man covered in so much hair he really didn't look human.  I wondered if some of it – the hair covering his forehead and inner arms, for example – wasn't pasted on, but it was clear most of it was his own.  Lisa was dissatisfied.  "'Nuffa this shit," she said dismissively.  "Those aren't freaks.  They're people who need a shave."

            I threw an apologetic glance at the Wolfman.  He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that said "what are you gonna do?"

            It got a little better from there in, by Lisa's standards anyway: next up was "Sammy 'n' Steve," a man who looked perfectly normal except for the extra pair of arms protruding from his abdomen and legs growing out of his groin, remnants of a Siamese twin who'd never separated properly. He had a patter going about how hard it was to get dates, even though the women ought to have been excited at the prospect of two sets of "working goods" to choose from.  I could see Lisa gearing up to ask him to demonstrate how they worked, and I put my hand on her arm in an unconscious warning gesture.  She looked down at me, and in a split second I recalled who I was with, and wondered what she was going to do.

            But, after a long look, she didn't do anything.  Instead, she walked up to Sammy 'n' Steve and engaged Sammy in conversation – a long talk about his medical history, complete with discussion of vestigial organs and specific health concerns.  I was fascinated, less by the conversation itself than by the idea that you were free to ask all the rude questions you liked: that was what these people were here for.  I was surprised, too, at how intelligent Lisa's questions were.  A thought I'd had on a few occasions renewed itself: this girl might be crazy, but she was a fucking genius into the bargain.

            Next up was The Man With the Stomach of Steel, who claimed he could eat anything on the face of the planet and vomit it up within sixty seconds, good as new.  I hadn't known freak shows extended to people with freakish talents, but I watched anyway as Lisa handed him her haunted house machete spattered with the fake blood.  I shuddered; God knew where that thing had been.  But he ate it anyway – _how_ did he get that thing down?! – and then, sure enough, vomited it up again, leaving it lying on the ground, shining with spittle but otherwise good as new.  I thought I was going to vomit myself, but Lisa loved it.  She made him autograph it, and then picked it right back up and carried it on.

            On and on we went, past Neanderthal Man (head smashed into an awkward square at birth, with a jutting forehead and almost no jaw), Giraffe Woman (neck wildly elongated in some unspecified manner), Harry the Contortionist (when we saw him he was peering out at us from between hopelessly intertwined legs), Three-Eyes (third eye planted in the middle of his forehead, and odd protrusion in the center of his cheek which we were informed was the beginnings of a vestigial nose), Rat Boy (red eyes, pale white down all over his face, oddly pointed ears) and Janice and Joan, Siamese twins joined at the back of the head.  I had a feeling of surreality about the whole experience which worsened with each self-styled freak we passed.  These were the "freaks" designated by society: the physically deformed, or people with crazy, dangerous, and ultimately useless talents.  But they were all, almost to a one, relatively satisfied with their lot.  They were settled in at the carnival, they had a place for themselves that they'd chosen for themselves.  They were all affable, friendly, courteous: if they had demons, which I'm sure they must have, they were adept at keeping them locked inside.  So if they were the freaks, where did that leave us?  Were we exempt, just because we had all the proper parts in all the proper places?  Because I was attractive enough to seduce a few boys and my English teacher, was I safe from being made carnival fare?  Was Lisa safe, just because her lips were (marginally) this side of normal and her features were perfect and delicately proportioned?  I was getting to the philosophical side of stoned now, and I wasn't liking what I was finding.  I wondered if it was time to ask Lisa for another hit to send me back to the giggles again.

            But what about the crazy we kept inside our heads?  Did that really not count for anything?

            Was there a freak show for the freaks like us?

            At a glance, Lisa looked like none of this could have bothered her less.  Her eyes were brighter than I'd ever seen them, she was chatting up each of the freaks like they were her best friends, offering them licks of cotton candy and asking about their personal histories.  But it was overkill, somehow.  The gleam in her eye was disturbingly manic, and her voice was high and shrill, like she was trying to drown something out.  I wondered if some of the same thoughts that were bothering me were niggling at her as well.

            Then again, she was pretty high.

            Last but certainly not least came the fat lady, proclaimed as "The Fattest Lady in the Whole World!" on her marquee.  I didn't know about that, but she had to be in the top ten.  She was gargantuan, elephantine, her breasts so mountainous they eliminated any possibility of a lap, but the lap was there anyway, rising above her legs in a looming mound that made it look as though she were eight months pregnant with healthy octuplets.  Her marquee pronounced that each of her thighs was "the girth of a sixty-year-old oak tree," and I could believe it.  Her head looked oddly small and fragile, framed by still more lumps and pockets of flesh.  Her eyes - cliché as it sounds - were beautiful, a shade of blue-green I'd never seen before.  I stared into them wonderingly, still a little stoned, and for just a second she glanced back at me and gave me the tiniest smile.  And I felt that she understood, somehow.  Understood me.

            Lisa's voice, sounding harsh and nasal, cut into my musings.  "So it says here you have a glandular defect," she said, addressing the fat lady, whose name was stated as Lizabeth.

            She nodded.  "Yep."

            Lisa rolled her eyes.  "Isn't that just an excuse not to have to say you eat like twelve horses put together?  Blame it on bad glands?"  
            "Lisa!" I cried, before I could stop myself.  Lizabeth favored her with an unperturbed smile.

            "Whatever you want to believe, darling."

            "Well, it burns me, I mean, everyone else here has something _physically_ wrong with them, something they can't _help_, and you just sit there and fucking eat yourself up to, what, eight hundred pounds? And you call yourself a freak?  You're no freak, you're just a weak –"

            I pulled on her arm.  "We're going, Lisa. I'm sorry," I threw back to Lizabeth.

            She smiled at me, still looking serene.  "No problem.  Thanks for coming to see me."

            Lisa was still talking, yelling back at Lizabeth now. "—just a weak fucking person who can't do anything to help herself, you fucking ordinary—"

            I shoved her out the door so hard she wound up on her ass on the ground.  "What the fuck was that, Lisa?  What the fuck was that?" I was screaming now too, tense and overwrought and more upset than I would have believed possible at seeing Lizabeth abused that way.

            She stared back at me, expressionless, and for one tense moment I honestly thought she was going to go after me with the machete.  Then she shrugged, got up, dusted her ass off, and addressed some point above my head in a taut, terse voice that made me aware just how close she was to snapping completely.  I wondered why she was bothering to hold it in.  

            "I'm going back behind the tent to shoot up.  Come on."

            I stared at her.  "No, Lisa," I said eventually.

            She gave me a hard glance.  "What do you mean, no?  You don't want any, then just fucking watch.  Come on."

            "No.  I mean – no.  No, I'm not watching you shooting… heroin… I'm not watching you do that to yourself."

            Her eyes burned into me, deeper and deeper, until I found myself twisting under her gaze.  I would not look away, though. I could sense that she was on the brink of losing it completely, and I was afraid of showing any weakness, anything that might push her over the edge.

            A second later, she stretched out her arm and clipped me across the face.  Hard.  I blinked, but I didn't cry.  Nor did I look away.

            And then something in her relaxed, and I felt myself relax as well.  "Suit yourself.  Have a nice life."

            I wandered away blindly, trying to come to terms with that last statement.  So here I was, at a carnival somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere, with sixty dollars in my pocket and nowhere to go.  

            I figured the best plan was just to turn myself in to the cops and let them bring me back to Claymoore.  But not just yet.

            Instead I wandered back through the carnival, not really having any idea what I was doing.  I was starving – I'd had the munchies for a half an hour, but hadn't gotten any food – so I stopped at a hot dog stand and got two hot dogs, a large order of fries, and a candy apple, and then ate them all one after the other.  Then I kept wandering, listening idly to the cries of the barkers, not really having any aim, just relishing these last few hours of freedom.

            And when I came to the Swinger, I stood in line with the four- and five-year-olds, staring for a long time at the sign that said YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE.  It was about three and a half feet off the ground.  Had I ever been that little?  What had been inside my head when I was that little?

            And I got on the ride, in one of the special adult seats meant for parents riding with small toddlers; an empty child-size seat dangled beside me.  Then the ride started, and I felt that familiar lift in my stomach as it whirled us off the ground, that lift I'd forgotten for so long.  I felt at peace again, somehow.  Not free – I wasn't sure I'd ever feel that way again, and I was too old for swings.  But peaceful, anyway.

            When the ride ended I stayed in my chair, and when the attendant came over to unlock me I stayed there and handed him two more tickets for another ride.  I did that again and again until I ran out of tickets, and then I handed the attendant a ten and told him to leave me alone and let me ride until the place closed.  He did.

            And I don't think I was even very surprised, in that dreamy half-conscious state I'd descended into, when I glanced down and saw Lisa waiting at the bottom.  She was watching me, face upturned and somehow innocent-looking in the streaming neon lights of the Gravitron behind her.  Waiting and watching just like my parents had, only the difference here was that nothing was expected of me.  She wasn't examining my face to make sure I was having the proper amount of fun, she was just watching me.  And she knew me better than they ever had.  And she was a junkie and she was crazy, and I liked her better than anyone else in the world.

            I got off the ride after that round, stumbling awkwardly as I tried to get my land legs again.  I almost fell as I came up to her; she grabbed my hand quickly, exposing the inside of her arm in the process.  No marks.  

            Maybe the other arm?  But that didn't make sense.  Her thigh?  I glanced down; her shorts were cut up high enough that unless she was shooting up in her groin, I'd have been able to see the tracks.  But nothing.

            What the hell had happened?

            "Ready to move on?  The guy who owns the freak show said we can stay the night in his trailer, maybe move on with the carnival if we earn our keep.  The guy who runs the Tilt-O-Whirl ran off with the clown's wife and a bag of cheap blow, so they're short-staffed.  They're headed for Florida, Susie."

            I stared at her, not having the faintest clue what was going on here.  I had no idea whether I was sane or crazy, making my own choices or getting dragged along on her apronstrings.  I knew she was crazy, and I knew this was a bad idea, but I needed a place to sleep for the night.  And was embarking on a road trip with one sociopath and a bunch of carnies really so much worse than spending the next two years locked in a medium-security psych ward with a bunch of anorexics and schizophrenics and pathological liars?

            I felt a pang.  Those were my friends.  But they were anorexics and schizophrenics and pathological liars, and some of them weren't much healthier than Lisa.  Together, they could drive a girl a lot crazier than Lisa ever could.

            And if I was going to be in love with a sociopath, I was going to have to come to terms with it.  Claymoore wasn't going to help me much in that regard.

            She grabbed my hand as we walked away from the Swinger, an oddly incongruous gesture of affection.  I leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek.  She batted me away, but she smiled at me sidewise.

            Whatever this was shaping up to be, it was new to me.  And after a year of stagnant routine on a psych ward, new was good enough for me.


End file.
